Birthday Surprises
by William Easley
Summary: The twins turn fourteen and reflect on what the summer has brought them and taken from them. It's a time of looking back. And ahead.


**Birthday Surprises**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Saturday, A_ _ugust 31, 2013. It's about five o'clock in the morning, and downstairs, Mabel is probably still asleep. I'm sitting up in bed with the Journal on my knees, writing away in the lantern light._

 _I woke up real early because today we're fourteen. And tomorrow we have to leave Gravity Falls and go home to Piedmont._

 _It will be nice to see Mom and Dad after a summer away, and Mabel has lots of friends that she'll be glad to see in the neighborhood and in school this fall. We're freshmen this year!_

 _But me—I really don't have any friends at school. Just Mabel. And somehow, I hope not, but somehow I feel that we're not quite as close as we once were. Maybe it's just me. I'm sort of bummed and a little depressed. Last year she hated going home. This year, I think that's me._

 _I really hope that this will be a better year for me than our last year of middle school was. I am so freaking tired of getting tripped in the classroom or shoved in line or called "wimp" or having spitballs shot at me. Twice last year other boys gave me wedgies, like I was just a little kid._

 _I don't know, maybe it's that disturbing little bit of Bill Cipher that's in me now, but something tells me I won't take it this year. That probably means I'm headed for detention now and then. Seems that if you fight back, you're the one who gets blamed._

 _Why can't people just let other people alone?_

 _Anyway, I am going to miss the Mystery Shack so much. It's almost more home to me than our real home is. I love this big attic, my bedroom and my research center rolled into one. Miss you, Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, Soos, Melody, Abuelita._

 _Wendy. Most of all, Wendy._

 _Oh, I'm going to miss her so much. Already my heart feels hollow. I hope we'll be able to come back again during our Christmas break in December, like Grunkle Stan suggested. I'm gonna try hard to persuade Mom and Dad if they're reluctant._

 _Man, December is so far away._

 _I haven't told Wendy, but to make this year better I have a few resolutions that might, I don't know, take me out of my shell? She'd like that, I think. Some of them would make me feel better, anyway. I know you're not supposed to make resolutions until January, but September is like January for the school year, right?_

 _1—I am going to try out for the first-year track team. Haven't even told Mabel that. I know I probably won't make it, but Mabel's been timing my sprints down on the Combined School track, and I'm fairly good. I can reliably do the hundred-meter dash in twelve and a half seconds (my best was actually 11.95, but that was one time only), and the charts say that's good. If I just don't lose confidence. Anyway, I WILL try out. Earlier this summer I even thought about maybe going out for baseball, but our experience with the Little Guys League here in Gravity Falls sort of soured me on that._

 _2—I am going to try to learn a musical instrument other than the Sousaphone. I'm thinking guitar. I know, I know, Robbie plays the guitar, and Wendy liked that about him, and I guess I would sort of be copying._

 _But look how happy Mabel always is, and she has like a billion hobbies. It would be nice to have a talent of some kind, and I do like music. And you know, when you're at a party and break out the Sousaphone, people tend to drift away instead of hanging around to sing along. So a guitar would have to be an improvement._

 _Nothing fancy, just a real basic acoustic model to start with. I don't even know if I've got it in me, but just down the street from us in Piedmont there's a couple, both of them retired music teachers, actually, who offer guitar and piano lessons in their home. I think I can just walk down for a lesson maybe three times a week._

 _I'm going to ask them, anyway. I think Mom and Dad might be willing to pay for a guitar and lessons. If I try for a couple of months and it's hopeless, I can always quit. But I won't tell Wendy about even trying it before I do try, because—nobody likes a quitter._

 _Not even the quitter._

 _3—Man, this next one's so hard even to write down. Wendy wants me to go to school dances and not hang around home brooding. I think I will—well, I actually do already, but it's always the same: I dance with Mabel once or twice, then she finds like a half-dozen guys to laugh and dance and have fun with._

 _Everybody thinks the one or two dances I do with my sister are just so cute. Afterward I just stand against the wall and drink punch and watch the dancers._

 _Everybody thinks that I'm just pathetic._

 _Wendy says she'll go to her school dances and casually dance with guys she can stand, and it's OK for me to go to mine and dance with a girl now and then, as long as it doesn't get serious. As if it could._

 _Not with her waiting for me here._

 _Not with the pact we made to each other._

 _4—As soon as we get home, I plan to start my Journal #2. I've got over two hundred pages in this one—granted, not every page is full, but even so, there are only about twenty blank sheets left at the end. Great-uncle Ford has read through this one—he even copied the notes I made on the woodpecker-trap tree, and in reading the rest, he kindly agreed to skip the pages I'd marked "private" with sticky notes, almost all of them about Wendy—and I trusted him to do that._

 _He likes my discussion of anomalies and says I do a good job at recording observations and actions. He is working on his Journal 4, and I've seen a little of it. He says next summer he will have finished it and I can borrow it to read._

 _I can learn about his and Grunkle Stan's adventures on the Stan-O'-War. Maybe even learn about that treasure Grunkle Stan found that he won't talk about because of the statute of limitations. Of course, Ford may put sticky notes on those pages!_

 _But great-uncle Ford's offer gives me another reason to bug Mom and Dad about letting us return. I don't think that will really be a problem. This year they went to Hawaii, where Dad spoke at some kind of computer convention! They couldn't have afforded to take us, too, but it's nice for them to be able to travel. Mom wants to go to London and Paris next summer, and there's another computer conference in Ireland to give them an excuse._

 _Mabel and I will lobby for Gravity Falls for us! Shouldn't be a problem for Mom and Dad. They seem to like the way we come back a little more, what, mature? Responsible? Whatever, they seem to like the changes they notice after we get back._

 _Except they don't know about the occasional nightmares we have—lucky that Mabel's and my bedrooms are upstairs and theirs is downstairs. Sometimes Mabel has to come and calm me down, sometimes it's the other way around. My worst ones are about the Shapeshifter, Mabel's about Bill Cipher. But the bad dreams don't come all that often._

 _Maybe we'll outgrow them._

 _So—we have a birthday party later today. I guess I'll enjoy that. But it will make leaving for home kind of tough again._

 _About eighteen long, boring hours on the bus. Mabel's sad because Waddles is staying here this time. He's just too big now. But Melody and Soos will take good care of him, and Mabel and he can Skype visit. Hey, Pacifica even agreed to drop by once a week to take Waddles for walks and to scratch his ears in the special way that Mabel taught her. Imagine that._

 _Fourteen years old today. A little more acne, and the fuzz on my chin is starting to show up in a darker color._

 _Guess we really are growing up._

 _I just wish I felt a little bit less like a little kid. . .._

* * *

"So," Pacifica asked after the candles had been blown out, "may I kiss the birthday boy?"

"Yeah, I guess," Dipper said.

She surprised him by grabbing him and really planting one on him—she even slipped her tongue between his lips. She pulled away with a wicked grin. "So you won't forget me."

"No chance of that, Blondie!" he heard himself say. _Doggone it, Bill, stay out of my head!_ "Uh, seriously, I'll miss you. Thanks for the present, by the way!" Pacifica had found a copy of a pretty rare and long out-of-print book, _The_ _Haunters and Their Haunts,_ written in 1922 by a pioneering English paranormal investigator, Haddonley Jefferies Throckmount. Dipper had read some interesting things _about_ the book, but had never seen a copy before, and he looked forward to reading it. "Uh—how did you know?"

"Mabel told me, silly," Pacifica said. "Hey, thank you again for helping me out when my crazy cousin came. I've already thanked Mabel."

 _Oh, yeah, Pacifica has joined Grenda and Candy as one of Mabel's best friends. And somehow they all get along! So world peace is probably possible, too._

Robbie, Tambry, and Wendy were off at the refreshment table, goofing around, Wendy taking photos of Tambry licking cake frosting off Robbie's cheek. "Gonna send this to your parents, Robbie," Wendy teased, and quickly Robbie grabbed Tambry's phone back from her.

Grunkle Stan was squiring his—lady friend?—his new friend Sheila around, introducing her to people from the town, though everybody knew her, anyway. She was laughing and joking and seemed to get along well with pretty much everybody. Still, knowing his Grunkle, Dipper gave their relationship about a month at the outside.

Soos was moping around. "Gonna miss you so much, dawgs," he kept saying mournfully to both Mabel and Dipper, though they'd promised to keep in touch with him and to text him every day.

Soos was going to keep Mabel in touch with Waddles, too. He'd already built the pig a comfortable little dog house—hog house?—in the back yard of the Shack, which Waddles had taken to right away. "But when it's cold, he moves inside," Mabel said firmly, and Soos, speaking from behind his hand, whispered, "You got it, Hambone, as long as Abuelita doesn't find out."

Soos took his station as DJ, and they danced. Mabel's summertime squeeze, as she called him, Barry Zinzer, danced with her first and then with Pacifica. Dipper waited for Wendy to dance with Robbie—for old times' sake—before he asked her. They did a wild Gangnam Style, almost as exhausting as their morning workouts and runs, and Dipper didn't get too badly out of step.

When it was over, Wendy pushed him playfully. "You've gone an' got all coordinated on me, Dip! Hey, promise me something. Keep up your runnin' and exercise routine, OK?"

"I mean to," Dipper said. "I'm thinking, I want to be a researcher like Ford, but also a fighter like Stan. That way I not only can track down monsters, but beat 'em into submission if I have to."

She took his hand. "But promise me somethin' else. Like, swear you're not gonna get involved in any dangerous mysteries off down there in California. I want you to come back to me in one piece."

Dipper shrugged and grinned. "No monster adventures, don't worry. I have to reserve that mystery stuff for Gravity Falls."

* * *

So many goodbyes. The guys who'd been on the Mystics baseball team all wished him well—even some, like Rudy, who'd been on other teams. Geetaur, the young manotaur, gave him a small gold nugget on a leather thong. The manotaurs picked them up in creeks from time to time, but had no use for the shiny stones—until they discovered that Grunkle Stan would gladly trade them jerky in exchange. Now the manotaur society was probably transforming from a hunting to a trading economy.

The McGuckets, all three of them, hugged him and Mabel tightly and thanked them for what they had done—early in the summer, the two of them, with a lot of help, had rescued Mrs. McGucket from nearly thirty years of captivity. Their son Tate, in particular, hemmed and hawed and finally said, "You kids are the best thing that ever happened to this town."

Even Gideon Gleeful, who was trying hard to be a regular kid (though with an entourage of tough ex-cons, to be sure), gave Mabel a peck on the cheek and Dipper a handshake. "Any time you come back, be sure to come and see me, hear?" he said. "And when you get old enough for a car, my daddy will put you in a good'un!"

Well, seeing Gideon again wouldn't be hard. Nearly every weekend, Gideon came to the shack and became the Dancing Wolf Boy, picking up tips and also—more important for him, Dipper thought—soaking up applause and approval.

At sunset, Dipper walked down the long winding trail to where the stone likeness of Bill Cipher waited, more overgrown than ever. "Goodbye, Nacho Chip," Dipper said, standing with his hands in his pockets. "See you again next summer, I hope. Don't go destroying the world or anything crazy, OK?"

He didn't try to enter the Mindscape. He was all too keenly aware that a little tiny part of Bill lived inside his head now. He didn't want Bill to tease him about it—even though now Bill had a small part of Dipper in his own make-up.

He wandered back to the bonfire clearing and sat on the log, just thinking, as the twilight deepened.

"Hey."

Dipper looked up. In the dusk, Jeff the Gnome stood at the edge of the clearing. He cleared his throat and spoke again: "Hi, there."

"Hi, Jeff. Nice to see you."

"Uh—you know, the Gnomes wanted me to say goodbye to you and Mabel. You'll be back, won't you?"

"Count on it."

"Well—we'll see you next summer. Those of us who live through the winter." Jeff shivered a little, though the evening was warm. "It's always tough for Gnomes in the winter."

"Things get too hard, go see Soos," Dipper advised. "He's a soft touch."

"Thanks for the advice." And Jeff melted back into the underbrush, as only a Gnome could do.

The stars began to come out. Someone came crunching down the trail. "Thought I might find you here."

"Hi," Dipper said to Wendy.

She settled next to him. "Party's all wound down. I'm gonna miss you so much, Dipper."

He took her hand. "Not as much as I'll miss you."

"Well—you come back at Christmas if you can, and next summer for sure. Or I'll come and get you."

"You've got me already," Dipper said.

She laughed. "First time I saw you this year, I said we'd have to work on your pickup lines. Guess we made a little progress. Which reminds me—" She reached for his pine-tree hat, though since the baseball season she had one of her own. He felt her plop her soft fur trapper's hat onto his head. "This is a pledge that we'll see each other next year, man."

"I'll get back here. With or without Mom and Dad's permission, I'll be back." They got up, and with their arms around each other's waists, they walked out into the meadow beyond the forest edge.

"Big Dipper," Wendy said very quietly.

He looked up. There it was, shining up in the northwestern sky. "Yeah, I see it."

"Not what I meant," she told him, turning to hug him.

"Oh."

They had a nice walk, and said some nice things, and did a few nice things. Memories he could take back to California with him.

But still that night he felt awfully alone in bed. Around midnight he finally got up and went softly downstairs and tapped on Mabel's door. She opened it at once. "Can't sleep?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Sleepover?"

She smiled, showing her braces, ducked back into her room for pillow and blanket, and they tiptoed back upstairs to the attic.

"You know," she said, settling down in her old bed across from his, "this place is home."

"I know what you mean," Dipper told her.

They lay back and talked back and forth about everything that had happened over the summer. And about high school and how scary it seemed right then. About the bus trip, without Waddles.

"You're my best friend," a sleepy Dipper told Mabel.

"Same goes for you, brobro," she whispered back.

"Would it be stupid if I said I love you, Sis?"

"Nah. I love you right back, Dip."

After a while she began to snore softly, the way she always did. Dipper lay smiling in the dark. He'd missed that sound. Before long it lulled him to sleep.

* * *

 _We've been on the bus for Piedmont now for two hours, and Mabel is asleep in the seat next to me and leaning on my shoulder. I've been staring out the window and just now saw a car with a special bumper sticker that made me smile._

 _One of these days you may see one yourself: a bright yellow bumper sticker that asks "What is the Mystery Shack?"_

 _Well, I'll tell you: it's a lot of things. It's a tacky tourist trap, for one. It's where dreams come to life, for another._

 _As somebody once said, the exhibits in the Shack are all fake, but the dreams aren't._

 _It's where the people I love most in the world laugh and have adventures and learn to accept and stand up for each other. It's where my sister and me have kind of grown up some, and that's always scary, but it's easier to face it together._

 _It's the home where my heart will always live. If you can find the Mystery Shack, pay it a visit. If you're open-minded and open-hearted, I guarantee you'll like what you find there._

 _-Dipper Pines, last entry in his Journal 1._

The End

of the Mystery Twins' Second Summer in Gravity Falls


End file.
